Ashley Madison

I was listening to the radio this morning, and I heard a commercial for Ashley Madison. I couldn't believe what I was hearing, so I had to look it up. Have you ever heard of this? This is the worst thing that I have heard in a long time. It is a dating service for married people. It caters to people who are married and want to have an affair but don't want to leave their spouse. Their motto is "Life is short. Have an affair." They're big enough to get ad space on KLOS, and according to this article they have some tv commercials. Here is part of the LA Times article:

"One television spot shows a glamorous couple in the throes of passion. A title card reads, "This couple is married ... but not to each other." In another ad, a man retreats to the sofa to escape his obese, snoring wife while a voice-over declares, "Most of us can recover from a one-night stand with the wrong woman, but not when it's every night for the rest of our lives.""

A quick Google search provides headlines like these:
- Ashley Madison provides that romantic rendezvous for attached adults who don't want to leave their spouses, they just want a little sex on the side.
- Bored with life? Have an Affair.
- Married Dating, Affairs, Married Women, Extramarital Affair. Ashley Madison is the online personals & dating destination for casual encounters.

In an interview you can read here, the CEO of Ashley Madison, Noel Biderman, was asked if he would be ok if his wife used the service. He said, "No. If my wife were using my service, or any dating service, or if I even found her on Facebook chatting with former boyfriends and not telling me about it, I would be emotionally hurt beyond belief, and would feel that our relationship had severe problems."

I try not to soapbox on this blog, but I'm outraged by this. I can't believe the creator's casualness about how he is facilitating marital infidelity and his hypocritical reaction to how he would feel if his wife used his service. If you search just a little bit online, you can find tragic stories about people who just discovered that their spouse signed up for this service and they don't know what to do now. This is tragic! What makes this even more tragic is its popularity. The service claims it has 3.2 million members, and LA is its biggest market. Unbelievable!